One thing that can be said about our local music community: whether it be hurricanes, house fires, illness, or the success of the Click Five, we know how to unite in the face of disaster. This Tuesday, June 24, the musical mayor of JP, Rick Berlin, hosts a benefit for the victims of the earthquake in China, along with the Milky Way’s Kathie Mainzer and city councilor Sam Yoon. (Oh, plus free food from Food Wall, yes!) It’s a heck of a bill for a hell of a cause, featuring Todd Drogy and Abby Driscoll, Dave Aaronoff, Travis Pullman, Roger Poulin, Cassy Malloy, Iliya, Two Thieves, and the folks we’ve provided samples from below. Show up and feel good about what you hear as well as who you help.

Sodafrog, “Headed for Phase”Tom Janovitz (also of the Shout Abouts) has a brand new bag called Sodafrog. To judge from his freshly released EP, Two Days from the Woods, it’s a little, lonely-sounding bag. This track gives a good idea of Janovitz’s modest, country-tinged approach, and the lo-fi hiss and elegant Americana at work in his other posted tracks help to triangulate his deal.

Shepherdess, “Blackout”Shepherdess are awesome for a number of reasons, among them a knack for crystallizing a phase of Boston indie-rock that must’ve gotten deleted by the Y2K bug or something. Noisy, scratchy, butlush and hooked on hooks — there’s a little something for everyone here.Leo Blais, "Slow Drivin"
Quit dissing Lowell. If people weren’t so dangerously literal, we’d say there’s something in the water there, since the exuberant pop of the title track to Leo Blais’s new maxi-single sure doesn’t sound as if it came from a gloomy place. A safe place, sure, but not a gloomy one.

Rick Berlin, “Sean Penn Said”“Depression is black, but the blues come from heartbreak,” howls Rick Berlin at the beginning and end of this extended account of catching Sean Penn on Charlie Rose. No one song could represent Berlin — he’s far too versatile and varied — but the crossroads that map this one (Syd Barrett and torch songs? Bowie and benzos?) are quite enough to get lost in.

BOSTON PRIDE WEEK: OFF THE MAP | June 07, 2010 We may seem a little cranky, but us local gayfolk just love a parade, and we’re actually heartened by this annual influx of brothers and sisters from every state of New England and every letter of our ever-expanding acronym.

THE NEW GAY BARS | June 02, 2010 If I may channel the late, great Estelle Getty for a moment: picture it, Provincetown, 2009, a dashing young man with no discernible tan and an iffy T-Mobile signal languishes bored upon the sprawling patio of the Boatslip Resort.

ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI | BEFORE TODAY | June 01, 2010 If the gradual polishing of Ariel Pink’s sound — and it’s not all that much more polished — puts his loyalists at odds with his albums, I count that as good news.

MORE THAN HUMAN | May 26, 2010 It’s hard to talk about Janelle Monáe when your jaw’s fallen off.